"An Essay Toward a History of the Black Man in the Great War"
by W.E. Burghardt DuBois
Published in "The Crisis," vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1919), pp. 63-87.
Published in the USA prior to 1923, public domain.

Fresh back from an investigative trip to Europe, editor of the monthly magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), W.E.B. DuBois, outlines the history of black soldiers in World War I, both the 280,000 Senegalese who fought for France at the Marne, 30,000 Congolese fighting for the Belgians, as well as the 200,000 American blacks with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.
DuBois notes that of these 200,000, fully 3/4 were limited to work as stevedores and laborers, offloading ships, building roads, and so forth. The 50,000 African-American combat troops were part of 8 segregated infantry regiments formed under legislation of May 18, 1917.
DuBois notes that black laborers were indifferently housed and subjected to virtual slave labor for 12 hours a day, while soldiers were subjected to systemic prejudice.

Uploaded to Archive.org on March 4, 2014 by Tim Davenport ("Carrite").

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